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HUMANISM 

THE 



P Rev. DAVID ELLIOTT, D,D. 



I 



t ] 



PHILADELPHIA: 



No. 1334 Chestnut Street 



I 




ROMANISM 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 



BY THE 

/' 

Rev. DAVID ELLIOTT, D.D. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 



1334 CHESTNUT STBEET. 






The Library 
©f Congress 

washington 



■! 



cf- 



x A b 



.1 



£>* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada. 



ROMANISM 

THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 



In view of the large influx of Roman 
Catholics into our country, and the activity 
of their priesthood in propagating their prin- 
ciples, and the injurious influence of their 
system upon the liberties of the country, 
serious apprehensions have been excited in 
the minds of many, and the question is often 
asked, "Is the system of Romanism opposed to 
civil liberty f" 

This is certainly a question in which every 
American has a deep interest. It is admitted 
that we are the freest people on earth. We 
live in the enjoyment of civil liberty in its 
fullest extent. This is a great blessing con- 
ferred upon us by the God of heaven — a 
rich legacy bequeathed to us by our fathers. 

3 



4 ROMANISM 

Among intelligent and reflecting portions of 
the community, it is also highly appreciated 
and jealously guarded. This is right. It 
ought to be so. Take away a man's liberty, 
and you might almost as well take away his 
life. Prevent him from worshiping God 
according to the dictates of his conscience, 
and you crush his very being, and deprive 
him of that to which he has a moral and 
indefeasible right, and without which life is 
scarcely a blessing. Whatever system, there- 
fore, whether religious, ecclesiastical or social, 
can be shown to be in conflict with the en- 
joyment of civil or political liberty, or whose 
legitimate tendency is in that direction, ought 
to be looked upon with dread and rejected 
as dangerous. 

In the remarks which I am about to sub- 
mit, my object will be to show that the sys- 
tem of Romanism, or the Roman Catholic 
system, as it is usually called, is hostile to 
civil liberty, and that for this reason, as well 
as others, it ought to be opposed and coun- 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 5 

teracted by all legitimate moral and religious 
efforts. 

But let me not be misunderstood here. I 
do not mean to affirm that all Roman Catho- 
lics are the enemies of civil liberty. Many 
of them, no doubt, are its steadfast friends 
and advocates. But what I affirm is, that 
the Roman Catholic system of religion and 
of ecclesiastical law is at variance with civil 
liberty, and wherever it has been allowed to 
operate according to its true character it has 
proved destructive to its enjoyment. It is 
the system, therefore, against which we war, 
and not against individuals, who either may 
be ignorant of its true character or not feel 
themselves bound by its authority. 

In approaching the proof of our position 
it may be proper, also, to remark that, if we 
can show that the Roman Catholic Church 
at any period of her existence — much more 
if at different periods of her existence — has 
authoritatively established and practically 
sanctioned doctrines or acts which are at 



6 ROMANISM 

variance with civil liberty, we have gained 
our point; although, at other periods, she 
may not have assumed the same antagonistic 
attitude. For it will be carefully recollected 
that the Church of Rome claims to be infal- 
lible. What she once is she always is. What 
the pope affirms once she always affirms. 
What her councils decree once they always 
decree. As Dr. Doyle told the Protestant 
clergy of Ireland, "Causa finita est." The 
cause is finished. The question is settled. 
The Council of Trent has decided, and there 
can be no rehearing, and, of course, no re- 
versal. The admission of change would be 
destructive of infallibility. Hence the de- 
cisions of her popes and councils, whenever 
and wherever made, are always binding. 
And although, in the days of her weakness, 
she may connive at their infraction, when- 
ever she recovers her power she will enforce 
them, if need be, by the penal sanctions of 
the sword and the fagot. 

That we may perceive with greater dis- 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 7 

tinctness the opposition of Romanism to 
civil liberty, it may be proper to state 
wherein civil liberty consists. 

Without attempting a minutely exhaustive 
definition, we may safely affirm that civil 
liberty consists eminently in security against 
all encroachments on our natural and conven- 
tional rights, and in freedom from individual 
restraint, further than may be necessary for the 
general good. Where this security does not 
exist, there is no true liberty. 

Now, we affirm that Romanism is hostile 
to civil liberty, because it subverts and de- 
stroys the foundations of all security in the 
enjoyment of civil and political privileges. 
This it does in various ways, some of which 
I will now proceed to point out. 

1. It does so by denying men the free and 
unrestrained use of the Bible, which teaches 
them the knowledge of their rights and incul- 
cates that moral virtue which is necessary to 
their preservation. The Bible is the great 
text-book of civil liberty. Its instructions 



8 ROMANISM 

furnish the best possible security against all 
encroachments on the rights of men. To 
"love our neighbor as ourselves" is the 
fundamental law of the Bible in reference 
to this point. And its great practical rule 
of social and political ethics is, " All things 
whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them ; for this is the 
law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 12.) It not 
only denounces and condemns all injustice 
and oppression in general, but it specifically 
enjoins upon rulers and people the right and 
equitable discharge of their respective duties, 
so that there may be no oppression on the 
one hand, nor anv encroachment on the ex- 
ercise of lawful authority on the other. Its 
language is, " He that ruleth over men must 
be just, ruling in the fear of God." (2 Sam. 
xxiii. 2, 3.) " When the righteous are in 
authority, the people rejoice; but when the 
wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." 
(Prov. xxix. 2.) On the other hand, the in- 
junctions in regard to submission to rightful 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. ^ 

authority are full and explicit. " Let every 
soul be subject unto the higher powers : the 
powers that be are ordained of God. Where- 
fore ye must needs be subject, not only for 
wrath, but also for conscience sake. Render, 
therefore, to all their dues ; tribute to w T hom 
tribute is due ; custom to whom custom ; 
fear to whom fear ; honor to whom honor." 
(Rom. xiii. 1.) This same apostle — Paul 
the aged — instructs Titus, a younger brother 
in the ministry, to " put them in mind to be 
subject to principalities and powers, to obey 
magistrates." (Tit. iii. 1.) Rebellion against 
lawfully constituted government is every- 
where testified against in the Bible as a 
heinous offence. 

These, and others of a similar kind, are 
the principles which give security to men in 
the enjoyment of their civil and political 
rights and privileges — authority equitably 
and righteously exercised, obedience conscien- 
tiously and promptly rendered, as that which 
is justly due. Where these principles are 



10 ROMANISM 

observed, there can be no encroachment, 
either of rulers or ruled, upon each others' 
rights. Nothing unjust will be demanded. 
Nothing that is justly due will be withheld. 
Every man's rights will be respected in the 
station which he occupies and in the rela- 
tions which he sustains. Hence, the more 
familiar men are with the Bible, the more 
deeply will they be imbued with its princi- 
ples, and the greater security will there be 
for the full and safe enjoyment of their civil 
liberties. The whole history of the Chris- 
tian world proves this. Without going far 
back, where now does liberty hold its sway 
in its purest forms ? Is it not in those nations 
where the Bible is most extensively circulated 
and read? where the people are most thor- 
oughly indoctrinated in its principles, and 
most fully subject to its control ? Compare 
Great Britain with Spain (before the late 
revolution) and Portugal, the United States 
with South America and Mexico, and the 
force of these remarks will be manifest. 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 11 

Is not that system, therefore, the enemy 
of civil liberty which keeps the Bible from 
the people? which forbids its circulation, or 
allows it only subject to the censorship of 
those whose aggrandizement depends on its 
suppression ? Such is the system of Roman- 
ism. It is opposed to the free circulation of 
the Bible without note or comment : to the 
unrestrained perusal of this great charter of 
civil and religious rights. For the truth of 
this allegation we appeal to facts. And here 
we may confidently refer to the authoritative 
canons of their own church. 

The decrees of the Council of Trent are 
admitted by all true Catholics to be authorita- 
tive. This council was called by Pope Paul 
III. to meet at Trent, a city of the Tyrol, on 
the border of Italy, on March 15, 1545, but 
was not actually opened until the 13th of 
December following. By this council it was 
decreed that " No one, confiding in his own 
judgment, shall dare to wrest the sacred 
Scriptures to his own sense of them, con- 



12 ROMANISM 

trary to that which hath been held and still 
is held by the Holy Mother Church, and 
whose right it is to judge of the true mean- 
ing and interpretation of sacred writ, or con- 
trary to the unanimous consent of the fathers, 
even though such interpretation should never 
be published." This decree is incorporated 
in the creed of Pope Pius IV., published in 
December, 1564, and which has ever since 
been considered, in every part of the world, 
an accurate summary of the Roman Catholic 
faith. And to this creed every non-Catho- 
lic, on his admission to the Roman Catholic 
Church, is required publicly to testify his 
assent, " without restriction or qualification." 
Before the adjournment of the Council of 
Trent, a committee was appointed to prepare 
an index of prohibited books. Not being 
prepared to report before the council 
adjourned, the matter was referred to the 
pope, under whose inspection the index was 
published in March, 1564. Among the rules 
prefixed to the index is the following, viz: 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 13 

" It is manifest from experience that if the 
Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be 
indiscriminately allowed to every one, the 
temerity of men will cause more evil than 
good to arise from it." 

Pope Clement XI. , also, in his famous 
bull " Unigenitus," issued A. D. 1713, 
evinces the same decided hostility to the use 
of the Scriptures by the people, as the fol- 
lowing fact demonstrates: Father Quesnel, 
a French priest, in a commentary on the New 
Testament, published A. D. 1699, had laid 
down, amongst others, the following proposi- 
tion, viz. : " That it is useful and necessary, at 
all times, in all places, and for all sorts of 
persons, to study and know the spirit, piety 
and mysteries of the Holy Scripture; that 
the reading of the Holy Scripture is for 
everybody j and that the Lord's day ought to 
be sanctified by Christians by reading pious 
books, and, above all, the Holy Scriptures." 
These propositions the pope in his bull con- 
demns, and stigmatizes the whole as " false, 



14 ROMANISM 

captious, shocking, offensive to pious ears, 
scandalous, pernicious, rash, seditious, impi- 
ous, blasphemous." 

In like manner, in the " Declaration of the 
Catholic Bishops, the Vicars Apostolic, and 
their coadjutators in Great Britain," we find 
them directly opposing the authorized read- 
ing and circulation of the Scriptures, as cal- 
culated to do much evil, and, among others, 
to lead into " error and fanaticism in religion, 
and to seditions and the greatest disorders in 
states and kingdoms" 

Pius VII., also, writing to Archbishop 
Gnezn in 1816, calls the Bible-society "a most 
crafty device by which the very foundations 
of religion are undermined, a pestilence, and 
defilement of the faith most imminently dan- 
gerous to souls." And Pope Leo XII., as 
late as the year 1824, speaking of the same 
Bible society, says that it " strolls with 
effrontery throughout the world, contemning 
the traditions of the holy fathers, and, con- 
trary to the well-known decree of the Coun- 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 15 

cil of Trent, labors with all its might and by 
every means to translate, or rather to per- 
vert, the Holy Bible into the vulgar lan- 
guages of every nation : from which proceed- 
ing it is greatly to be feared that what is as- 
certained to have happened to some passages 
may also occur with regard to others, to wit, 
that by a perverse interpretation the gospel of 
Christ be turned into a human gospel, or, what 
is still worse, into the gospel of the devil." 

With these views of the pope the Irish 
Roman Catholic prelates, to whom this was 
written, fully accorded ; and they charged 
their flocks to give up to the priests the copies 
of the Scriptures they had received from the 
Bible societies, together with the publications 
of the Religious Tract Society. As an evi- 
dence that the Irish priests entered fully into 
the spirit of the pope, at a meeting at Carlow 
the next year (1825), at which the Rev. 
T. O'Connell and others were present, res- 
olutions were passed denouncing the Bible as 
no sufficient rule of faith. They also pro- 



16 ROMANISM 

claimed the right of private judgment to be a 
" fertile source of fanaticism, error, dissen- 
sion, and subversive of the peace of society ;" 
asserting, also, that " Bible societies are noth- 
ing more than an exchequer for the levying of 
taxes on the generosity and credulity of good 
men, by idleness, ignorance and imposture/' 

In an examination, also, before a commit- 
tee of the English House of Commons, 
Bishop Poynter, the vicar apostolic, and Mr. 
Charles Butler, two of the most enlightened 
of the English Roman Catholics, gave it as 
their opinion that it was contrary to Catholic 
principles to allow the free use of the Bible 
among the people, without notes and com- 
ments. 

These testimonies are amply sufficient to 
prove that Romanism is opposed to the free 
and unrestrained use of the Bible by the peo- 
ple. By its authoritative edicts and its offi- 
cial teaching, it deprives them of that which 
is the best preservative and defence of civil 
liberty — for the free use of the Bible, we 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 17 

repeat it, is always favorable to civil liberty, 
and gives security to men in the enjoyment of 
their rights. Of this we have a very strik- 
ing testimony in the declaration of the Jews 
in the city of New York, as reported in the 
winter of 1843. Attempts had been made in 
that city by the Roman Catholics to exclude 
the Bible from the common schools, and they 
had so far succeeded as to secure a report from 
the fourth ward in favor of its exclusion.* 
During the discussions on the subject, it 
w r as alleged by some one that the Jews were 

* The Roman Catholic Bishop Bayley, of New Jersey, 
in a letter to a Romish cardinal, assails the "public 
school system" as the source of most of the prevalent 
public and private dishonesty ! He also adds, that "It 
is the greatest enemy of the Catholic Church and of all 
dogmatic truth." 

Archbishop McClosky, of New York, also asserts 
that, " So far as Catholic children are concerned, the 
workings of the public school system have proved and 
do prove highly detrimental to their faith and morals." 
This opposition to the " public school system " arises 
chiefly from its allowing the reading of the Bible by 
the pupils, or in their hearing. 
2* 



18 ROMANISM 

opposed to its use in the public schools. To 
chis, Colonel Stone, a prominent citizen, 
replied that he " had been called upon by a 
large number of most respectable and intelli- 
gent Jews, and among them Rabbi Isaacs, 
who requested him to state, among other 
things, that 6 they were opposed to the fourth 
ward report (which was against the use of the 
Bible), because they had enjoyed civil rights 
only in countries where there was a free circu- 
lation of the Bible. In such countries only 
had they ever been permitted to enjoy civil 
rights in common with other religious denom- 
inations. ? " This is a striking fact, and 
deserves to be remembered. 

But we shall be told that the Bible is 
allowed to Roman Catholics. But how is it 
allowed ? They are not at liberty to choose 
their own version, but they must take the 
Vulgate Latin, or the Douay and Rhenish 
translations, in which Dr. Whitaker tells us 
that Isodorus Clarius Brixianus reports no 
less than eight thousand errors. Then, the 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 19 

people must have the permission of their priest 
or confessor to read this, which permission is 
granted only to "those persons whose faith 
and piety they apprehend will be augmented 
and not injured by it." Then, they must read 
the Scriptures " according to the sense which 
the Holy Mother Church has held and does 
hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true 
sense and interpretation of the holy Scrip- 
tures." And how the church judges in rela- 
tion to civil rights and privileges, we shall see 
before we close this discussion. The truth is, 
that the Roman Catholic Church is the open 
and undisguised enemy of the free circulation 
of the sacred volume — the Bible. And hence 
it is that civil liberty withers at her approach 
and dies under her embrace. But, leaving: 
this point, I proceed to observe : 

2. That Romanism destroys men's security 
in the enjoyment of civil and political liberty, 
by the unlimited and uncontrolled power which 
it vests in the hands of the pope. It creates 
a despotism in the person of an individual 



20 ROMANISM 

which is highly dangerous, if not destructive 
to the rights of men. 

It is notorious that some of the most distin- 
guished of the popes have claimed an abso- 
lute and universal power and control in tem- 
poral as well as in spiritual things. In the 
twenty-seven sentences of Gregory VII. and 
his council, called "Dictatus Papae," it is de- 
clared " that the pope ought to be called the 
Universal Bishop ; that his name alone ought 
to be recited in the church ; that he alone ought 
to wear the tokens of imperial dignity ; that 
all princes ought to kiss his feet ; that he is 
to be judged by none ; that he has power to 
depose emperors and kings," etc. 

Pope Adrian IV. also — as Rapin, relying 
on the authority of Cambden, informs us — 
laid claim to the highest temporal sovereignty. 
Henry II. of England, being desirous to 
annex Ireland to his dominions, applied to 
the pope for his approbation. Accordingly, 
Adrian issued his bull, A. D. 1154, in which 
he uses the following language to the English 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 21 

monarch : " It is certain, as you yourself 
acknowledge, that Ireland, as well as all other 
islands which have the happiness to be 
enlightened, by the sun of righteousness, and 
have submitted to the doctrines of Christian- 
ity, are unquestionably St. Peter's right, and 
belong to the jurisdiction of the Roman 
Church." And then, after giving Henry 
leave to do what he thought best in the prem- 
ises, and charging the people to submit to his 
jurisdiction, he adds : " Provided always 
that the rights of the Church are invariably 
preserved, and the Peter-pence duly paid." 
(This Peter-pence was a kind of yearly 
tribute paid to the see of. Rome, and levied 
on every family in England.) The grant 
thus made by Adrian was afterwards con- 
firmed to Henry and his successors by Pope 
Alexander III. In like manner Paul IV., 
on application of Philip and Mary, informed 
their ambassadors that he had " erected Ire- 
land into a kingdom, in virtue of apostolical 
power." 



22 ROMANISM 

Innocent III. also laid claim to the high- 
est temporal powers. In his bull granting 
the kingdoms of England and Ireland to 
King John he says : " Jesus Christ the King 
of kings and Lord of lords, and priest accord- 
ing to the order of Melehisedek, hath so 
united the royal and sacerdotal power in the 
church, that the kingdom is but a royal 
priesthood, and the priesthood the royal 
power ; and it hath pleased God so to order 
the affairs of the world, that these provinces, 
which had anciently been subject to the Ro- 
man Church in spirituals, were now become 
subject to it in temporals" This same pope 
asserted his presumptuous claims to the most 
absolute power, by telling Richard I. that 
i( he held the "place of God upon earth, and, 
without distinction of persons, he would pun- 
ish the men and the nations that presumed 
to oppose his commands." Indeed, Boniface 
VIII. pronounces it to be " necessary to sal- 
vation that every human creature be subject 
to the absolute authority of the pope ; that 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 23 

there are two swords in the power of the 
Church — the spiritual and the material: one 
in the hand of the pope, another which is in 
the hands of kings and warriors, but tohose 
exercise depends on the good pleasure and in- 
dulgence of the pope" * 

So fully has this doctrine been recognized, 
that it has usually been deemed heresy in the 
Roman Catholic Church to deny the suprem- 
acy of the pope. This same Boniface VIII., 
in a letter to Philip IV., usually called "The 
Fair" king of France, employs the follow- 
ing language : " Boniface, bishop and servant 
of the servants of God, to Philip, king of 
France : Fear God and keep his command- 
ments. We would have you to know that you 

* A few days before the riot in New York, in July of 
1871, the following declaration was put forth by the lead- 
ing Roman Catholic paper in this country: 

" While the State has rights, she has them only in virtue 
and by permission of the superior authority, and that 
authority can only be expressed through the Church — that is, 
through the organic law — infallibly announced and un- 
changeably asserted, regardless of temporal consequences" 



24 ROMANISM 

are subject to us, both in things spiritual and 
temporal, and we declare all those heretics 
who believe the contrary." And in another 
place he says, " God hath established us over 
kings and kingdoms, to pluck up, to over- 
throw, etc." In like manner, Pope Clement 
VI. declares that " The pontifical authority 
is not subject to the temporal or regal, nor to 
any poicer on earth" 

To this claim of universal dominion, and 
especially of temporal dominion, the royal 
pontiffs have most pertinaciously adhered. 
As an example of this, I would refer to what 
occurred in the reign of James the First of 
England. After the Gunpowder Plot, Par- 
liament, for the discovery of popish recusants 
who refused to acknowledge the king's inde- 
pendent sovereignty, framed an oath of alle- 
giance in which persons were required to 
acknowledge the king's sovereignty over the 
realm, and the power of the pope to depose 
him or dispose of his dominions was denied. 
Pope Paul V., however, issued a brief, dated 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 25 

Oct. 31, 1606, forbidding the Catholics to 
take the oath. And in the second brief, the 
next year, he declared to them that, if they 
took the oath, " they forfeited all hopes of sal- 
vation." Here you observe that, in a simple 
question of temporal sovereignty, the pope 
boldly claimed the pre-eminence, and a right 
to lord it over the king. And as stated by 
Rapin — from whom we quote — Cardinal Bel- 
larmine seconded the claim of the pope, and 
wrote a book against the oath. 

Such are some of the high claims and pre- 
tensions which have been made by many of 
the most prominent popes to absolute and 
universal authority, both spiritual and tem- 
poral. These high claims have also been sanc- 
tioned by councils, and advocated and de- 
fended by many of their most eminent men 
and standard writers. Thus, in the first 
Council of Lateran, A. d. 1512, under Julius 
II. and Leo X., Cajetan, Christopher, Mar- 
celli, and many others, attributed to the pope 
this same unlimited power, with the appro- 



26 ROMANISM 

bation of the council. Now, it is well known 
that this Council of Lateran was approved 
by the Council of Trent, and that the Coun- 
cil of Trent is received and acknowledged 
as authoritative by nearly the whole Roman 
Catholic world, so that these high claims of 
the Roman pontiffs may be considered as 
having received the sanction of the entire 
Roman Catholic Church. 

Their standard writers, too, such as Bellar- 
mine, Baronius, Perron, and others, main- 
tain the temporal authority of the popes, and 
their right to excommunicate and depose 
princes, as an article of the Catholic faith. 
Bellarmine savs, "That bv reason of the 
spiritual power, the pope, at least indirectly, 
hath a supreme power even in temporal mat- 
ters." He discourses on the whole subject in 
the following manner : " The spiritual power 
does not intermeddle with temporal things, 
but suffers them all to go on as they did be- 
fore they were united, provided they be no 
hindrance to the spiritual end, and be not 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 27 

necessary for attaining it. But, should any 
such thing happen, the spiritual power may 
and ought to confine the temporal by every 
method that shall be judged necessary. He 
(the pope) may change kingdoms, and take 
them from one person to give them to another, 
as a sovereign spiritual prince, if that be neces- 
sary/or the salvation of souls" I need hardly 
say that the authority of Cardinal Bellar- 
mine in reference to the question before us 
is great and controlling in the Church of 
Rome. He was a counselor of the court of 
Rome, wrote under the eye of the pope, ded- 
icated his books to him, and, as a token of 
his approval of his labors, he was rewarded 
by his Holiness with a cardinal's hat. 

Thomas Aquinas, known by the name of 
"The Angelical Doctor," teaches the same 
doctrine. He affirms that "In the pope is 
the top of both powers, and by plain conse- 
quence asserting that, when any one is ex- 
communicated for apostasy, his subjects are 
immediately freed from his dominion and 



28 ROMANISM 

their oath of allegiance to him." Baronius, 
too, a cardinal, and who would have been pope 
but for the opposition of the Spanish court, 
says that " There can be no doubt of it but 
that the civil principality is subject to the 
sacerdotal, and that God hath made the polit- 
ical government subject to the dominion of the 
spiritual Church" 

The popes did not rest satisfied with setting 
up these high claims to temporal power, 
but they carried them out in practice. Thus, 
Innocent III. actually deposed Otho IV., 
emperor of Germany, A. D. 1212. The 
most extraordinary and tyrannical measures 
were also adopted by this same pontiff in rela- 
tion to King John of England. The pope 
and king had quarreled in consequence of the 
attempt of Innocent to force an archbishop 
into the see of Canterbury without the con- 
sent of the monarch. John proving refrac- 
tory on his hands, the pope first laid the 
whole kingdom of England under an inter- 
dict, by which divine service was suspended 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 29 

in all the churches throughout the realm. 
Afterwards, he excommunicated the king, 
and freed his subjects from their oath of alle- 
giance ; and, finally, he deposed the haughty- 
monarch and offered his kingdom to Philip 
Augustus, King of France. John, finding 
himself reduced to extremities, made his 
peace with the pope by tendering to him his 
crown, which the pope accepted, and after 
five days returned it. And what is worthy 
of special notice here is, that John subse- 
quently — A. D. 1215 — granted his subjects 
Magna Charta, which to this day is consid- 
ered the foundation of English liberty, and 
having guaranteed its faithful observance by 
the sanction of an oath, the pope, in the ex- 
ercise of his. pontifical power, annulled the 
charter, released the king and his subjects 
from their oaths, and pronounced a " sen- 
tence of excommunication against every one 
who should persevere in maintaining such 
treasonable and iniquitous pretensions." 
At a somewhat earlier period — A. d. 1076 

3 * 



30 ROMANISM 

— Gregory "VII., commonly known by the 
name of Hildebrand, deposed Henry IV., 
emperor of Germany, in consequence of a 
quarrel on the subject of investitures. It 
may be interesting to some to see the form of 
deposition used on that occasion, which is as 
follows, viz. : 

"For the dignity and defence of God's 
Holy Church, in the name of Almighty God, 
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I depose 
from imperial and regal administration King 
Henry, son of Henry, some time emperor, 
who too boldly and rashly hath laid hands 
on thy Church ; and I absolve all Christians 
subject to the empire from that oath whereby 
they were wont to plight their faith unto true 
kings : for it is right that he should be de- 
prived of dignity who doth endeavor to 
diminish the majesty of the Church." 

This quarrel between Henry and the pope 
was attended with very serious results. " It 
is computed," says Hume, " that the quarrel 
occasioned no less than sixty battles in the 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 31 

reign of Henry IV. and eighteen in that of 
his successor, Henry V., when the claims 
of the sovereign pontiff finally prevailed." 
This bold and restless pontiff extended his 
usurpations all over Europe, and even be- 
yond it. " He pronounced the seutence of 
excommunication against Nicephorus, em- 
peror of the East; he degraded Boleslas, 
king of Poland, from the rank of king, and 
even deprived Poland of the title of a king- 
dom," and assumed and exercised other pow- 
ers of the most tyrannical kind. 

Pope John XXII. excommunicated the 
emperor Lewis of Bavaria, and absolved his 
vassals from their oath of fealty, and an- 
nulled all treaties of alliance between him 
and foreign princes. And Pope Pius V., by 
his bull — A. D. 1570 — deprived Queen Eliza- 
beth of England of her kingdoms, and ab- 
solved her subjects from their oath of alle- 
giance. And in 1585 Pope Sextus V., in a 
bull against Henry, king of Xavarre, after- 
ward the great Henry IV. of France, and 



32 ROMANISM 

the prince of Conde, uses the following lan- 
guage : " We deprive them and their pos- 
terity for ever of their dominions and king- 
doms/' also, "By the authority of these pres- 
ents, we do absolve and set free all persons, 
as well jointly as severally, from any such 
oath, and from all duty whatsoever in regard 
of dominion, fealty and obedience, and do 
charge and forbid all and every of them 
that they do not dare to obey them, or any 
of their admonitions, laws and commands." 

It would be easy to extend these examples 
of the exercise of pontifical tyranny in rela- 
tion to the dethronement of civil rulers ; but 
it may be sufficient to observe that the his- 
tory of the Roman Catholic Church shows 
that above sixty princes have been excom- 
municated by upwards of forty popes. These 
examples prove, beyond controversy, w r hat 
were the high claims and the settled doc- 
trines and practices of the Roman Catholic 
Church in reference to the temporal power 
of the pope during those centuries in which 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 33 

Romanism had the ascendency and most 
extensively prevailed. 

But it is alleged by the apologists of Rome 
that this doctrine of the pope's power to 
dethrone rulers of states and kingdoms has 
become obsolete, and no longer exists. There 
are facts, however, in opposition to such an 
allegation, and which prove that the same 
doctrine is still held, and only waits a favor- 
able opportunity for its practical develop- 
ment. Thus, as late as the year 1729, Pope 
Benedict XIII. re-canonized Gregory VII., 
the famous Hildebrand, who, in the two 
preceding centuries, had been placed among 
the saints by Gregory XIII. and Paul V. 
He moreover appointed an office in the Lit- 
urgy in honor of Hildebrand, to be cele- 
brated on the 25th of May annually. In 
this office reference is had to his dethroning 
Henry and absolving his subjects from all 
duty toward him. This office, it is reported, 
is still celebrated in Italy, which shows con- 
clusively that the same tyrannical and dan- 



34 ROMANISM 

gerous power is still claimed, and, if favorable 
opportunities were afforded, would doubtless 
be exercised. 

But w r e have still more explicit evidence 
on this subject, in a letter addressed to the 
archbishop of Dublin by the apostolic 
nuncio at Brussels, Thomas Maria Ghilini, 
archbishop of Rhodes, bearing date the 4th 
of October, 1768. The subject of this letter 
is the oath abjuring the doctrine "that the 
pope has power to depose sovereigns and 
release subjects from their allegiance." " On 
many accounts," the nuncio says, " this new 
oath is blamable, and unworthy of Catholic 
prelates ; but it is, moreover, intolerable, if we 
consider the protestation which is annexed to 
it, to wit : of abominating and detesting, from 
the heart, the doctrine which is therein de- 
clared to be abominable and pernicious." 
(That is, the doctrine that the pope has 
power to depose sovereigns and release sub- 
jects from their allegiance.) "This doc- 
trine," he continues, " which is asserted in 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 35 

the oath to be detestable, is defended and 
maintained by very many Catholic nations, 
and hath very often been followed in its 
practice by the apostolic see. Wherefore, 
it cannot be that any Catholic shall declare 
it to be detestable and abominable, without 
the assertion incurring the character of a rash 
proposition, false, scandalous, and injurious to 
the holy seeP And he goes on to say that 
if any of them have taken the oath, it " be- 
ing in its whole extent unlawful, is, in its 
nature, void and null, and of no effect, so 
that it cannot, by any means, bind or oblige 
consciences." 

Now, is it not clear from these facts that 
there is no relinquishment of the claim of 
the Roman pontiffs to an absolute and uni- 
versal power over the civil authorities in all 
nations, and to dispose of rulers and people 
according to their pleasure? And can civil 
liberty be secure under the operation and 
control of such a system as this ? Can any 
government on earth be safe, when its con- 



36 ROMANISM 

tinuance and action are dependent on the ca- 
price of such men as Hilclebrand or Inno- 
cent III.? It cannot be. 

I would further direct the reader's atten- 
tion to another form in which this power of 
the pope has been applied to the detriment 
of civil liberty. By the 17th canon of the 
Council of Clermont, bishops and priests 
are forbidden to take the oath of fidelity to 
kings or to any layman. The Third Coun- 
cil of Lateran — a. d. 1179 — with Pope Alex- 
ander III. at its head, forbids, under the pain 
of excommunication, " all laics from obliging 
ecclesiastics to appear before the judges;" 
thus exempting them from obedience to the 
civil power. The same council forbids the 
exaction of taxes from the clergy. And the 
Fourth Council of Lateran — a. d. 1215 — 
with Innocent III. at its head, renewed this 
canon, and sentenced to excommunication all 
who offended against it. Boniface VIII. 
also published a constitution of like tenor, 
in which he avers that the laity have no 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 37 

power to tax ecclesiastics, and ordains the 
punishment of excommunication against all 
who shall pay such tax, or who shall impose 
it, whether they be kings, princes, magistrates 
or others. Thus, the pope and his councils 
claim and exercise an entire control over the 
civil power, to restrain and dispose of it as 
they please. Magistrates must not, in the 
discharge of their official functions, call eccle- 
siastics before them, nor attempt to impose 
on them any tax : nor, if this is done, must 
the clergy submit to such exactions, on pain 
of subjecting themselves to the severest pen- 
alties of the Church. 

In the reign of Edward I. of England, in 
the thirteenth century, there is a very in- 
structive piece of history, which strikingly 
exhibits the hostility of the pope to the prin- 
ciples of civil liberty. The encroachments 
of the papal pow r er, during the reigns of 
John and Henry III., had drawn forth the 
complaints of the English against the Church 
of Rome. But the pope in his turn also 



38 ROMANISM 

complained. In "The Collection of Public 
Acts," these complaints are found embodied 
in a bull of Pope Clement V. Among 
these complaints of the pope, one is, "That 
clergymen were subjected to the trial of twelve 
lay persons, and were acquitted or condemned 
by the verdict of these twelve incompetent 
judges" 

Here, you will observe, the pope quarrels 
with the "trial by jury," which, since the 
days of Alfred the Great, has ever been con- 
sidered the great palladium of civil liberty : 
" an institution," as has been well remarked, 
" admirable in itself, and best calculated for 
.the preservation of liberty and the adminis-^ 
tration of justice that was ever devised by 
the wit of man." Yet of this institution tl 
pope complains as being an intolerable griev- 
ance, and claims that his clergy be delivered 
from it. 

But, to come nearer home, even in our own 
country we have had an exemplification of 
the exercise of Romish ecclesiastical power, 






THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 39 

in regard to the right of property — a mere 
matter of secular interest. The facts to 
which we refer took place in the State of 
New York, in or about the year 1843. 
Bishop Hughes, the Roman Catholic bishop 
of that State, claimed that the property of 
the St. Louis Church, in the city of Buffalo, 
should be vested in him. To this the con- 
gregation demurred and refused to submit. 
As a punishment for their contumacy, the 
bishop withdrew from them their pastor, the 
Rev. Alexander Rex, and left them entirely 
destitute of pastoral care and without the 
enjoyment of the ordinances of religion, 
ow, what was this but the " interdict w of 
nnocent III. in miniature? — depriving the 
people of religious privileges to secure a con- 
cision in favor of his secular interests ? And 
w^at makes it the more oppressive, in cases 
of this kind, is the fact that the only redress 
which the people have is through the pope, 
asjby their canon law the authority of the 
bishop is necessary to give a priest the right 






40 ROMANISM 

to perform divine service in any of the 
churches in his diocese. So that even here, 
in this land of boasted freedom, the civil 
rights of men, in reference to their worldly 
property, are attempted to be superseded and 
wrested from them by ecclesiastical inflictions 
imposed upon them by the sworn officer and 
representative of the pope of Rome. 

And is not this a constituent part of the 
system of Romanism ? Undoubtedly it is. 
The pope, as we have seen from the teaching 
of Bellarmine, " has supreme power in tem- 
poral matters ;" or, as Pope Innocent told 
Richard I., "he holds the place of God upon 
earth" Of course, according to this doctrine, 
he has a right to any property he chooses to 
claim, and his bishops are bound to enforce 
his claim. For his bishops and clergy are 
required to swear "to be faithful and obedient 
to St. Peter and to the Holy Roman Church, 
and to our lord the pope, his successor, to 
receive and execute all his commands," etc. 

In view of all these facts, which might be 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 41 

easily multiplied, is it not evident that this 
doctrine of the pope's supremacy is highly 
dangerous to men's rights, and that the sys- 
tem of which it is an essential part is hostile 
to civil liberty? But on this part of the 
argument we cannot longer dwell, but pass 
on to observe, 

3. That Romanism destroys men's secur- 
ity in the enjoyment of civil liberty, by the 
loose and disorganizing character of its moral 
principles, lohich break down moral obligation, 
and subvert the very foundations of confidence 
and trust 

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that 
faith is not to be kept with heretics, and by 
heretics she understands all who do not ad- 
here to the Church of Rome. This doctrine, 
that faith is not to be kept with heretics, is 
abundantly sustained by the history of the 
Roman Catholic Church. Thus, Pope Mar- 
tin V., in an epistle to Alexander, duke of 
Lythuania, says, "Be assured thou sinnest 
mortally if thou keepest faith with heretics." 

4* 



42 ROMANISM 

On this same subject, Pope Gregory IX. en- 
acted the following law, viz. : " Be it known 
unto all who are under the jurisdiction of 
those who have openly fallen into heresy, that 
they are free from the obligation of fidelity, 
dominion, and every kind of obedience to 
them, by whatsoever mean or bond they are 
tied to them, and how securely soever they 
may be bound." And in the decretals of 
this pope, the broad principle is laid down, 
" That an oath disadvantageous to the Church 
is not binding." 

Of the same character is the doctrine of 
Cardinal Perron and the French clergy. 
After the murder of Henry IV., an oath 
was proposed abjuring the doctrine that it 
was lawful to assassinate kings, or depose 
them for heresy, and absolve their subjects 
from allegiance. Against this proposal the 
clergy, with Cardinal Perron at their head, 
remonstrated, declaring, " That if such a law 
w r ere established, they would entirely destroy 
the communion which they had hitherto 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 43 

maintained with all other churches; that 
such an oath could not be taken without 
acknowledging that the pope and the whole 
Church had erred, both in faith and in things 
pertaining to salvation." This doctrine of 
the clergy of France accords with that of 
Gregory IX., already recited. 

Indeed, the general principle seems to have 
been fully settled in the Roman Catholic 
Church, that it is right to break public obli- 
gations for the benefit of the Church. Hence, 
popes and councils have acted on this prin- 
ciple. Thus, the pope persuaded Ladislaus, 
king of Hungary, to break the truce of 
ten years, made with Amurath, sultan of 
the Turks, and absolved him from the oath 
whereby it had been confirmed. And 
when Henry I. of England scrupled to 
break a promise he had made, Calixtus told 
him that "He was pope, and would absolve 
him from his promise." Henry II. also 
received a papal dispensation to violate his 
father's will, which he had sworn to observe. 



44 EOMANISM 

A still more prominent illustration of this 
doctrine we have in the decree of the Coun- 
cil of Constance — A. D. 1415 — on the sub- 
ject of "the safe conduct" granted to heretics 
by temporal princes; especially in reference 
to the case of John Huss of Prague, the 
celebrated Bohemian Reformer. The decree 
runs thus : " The Holy Synod of Constance 
declares, concerning every safe conduct granted 
by the emperors, kings and other temporal 
princes to heretics, or persons accused of 
heresy, in hopes of reclaiming them, that 
it ought not to be of any prejudice to the 
Catholic faith or to the ecclesiastical juris- 
diction, nor to hinder, but that such persons 
may and ought to be examined, judged and 
punished according as justice shall require, 
if these heretics shall refuse to revoke their 
errors, although they shall have come to the 
place of judgment relying upon their safe 
conduct, and without which they would not 
have come hither : and the person who shall 
have promised them security shall not, in 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 45 

this case, be obliged to keep his promise, by 
whatever tie he may have been engaged, 
when he has done all that is in his power 
to do." 

Upon this decision of the council, Huss 
was condemned and burned, notwithstanding 
that he had come to Constance relying on 
the safe conduct given him by the Emperor 
Sigismund. Now, it is well known that the 
Council of Trent has confirmed the decrees 
of all the preceding general councils, and, 
consequently, that of Constance, which was 
held from 1414 to 1418 inclusive — something 
more than a century before that of Trent. 
Accordingly, in the creed of Pope Pius IV., 
which is a summary of the doctrines of the 
Council of Trent, the following is one of the 
articles to be professed, viz. : " I also profess, 
and uncloubtingly receive, all other things 
delivered, defined and declared by the sacred 
canons and general councils, and particularly 
by the Holy Council of Trent." Indeed, 
the Council of Trent formally allows the 



46 ROMANISM 

violation of a solemn contract and oath in 
the case of a man who is betrothed to a 
woman, but who, before consummation, en- 
ters into religious orders. So that the Church 
of Rome, by her standard council, whose de- 
cisions all true Catholics acknowledge to be 
binding, has fully endorsed the doctrine that 
the most solemn promises and compacts may 
be violated for the benefit of the Church. 

Nor is the conduct of the Council of Con- 
stance, in violating the safe conduct given to 
Huss, and putting him to death, approved 
only by the Roman Catholics of that period, 
but also by those of our own time. In proof 
of this, I refer to the " Eighth Report of the 
Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry," 
printed by order of the House of Commons 
of Great Britain, as given by Lord Bexley 
in his address to the freeholders of the county 
of Kent, October 25, 1828. Examinations 
were instituted by these commissioners in 
relation to the doctrines held by leading 
Catholics who had charge of the education 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 47 

in institutions supported by government. 
Among others, the Rev. Dr. Crotty, presi- 
dent of Maynooth College, was examined 
touching the decree of the Council of Con- 
stance, which violated the safe conduct of 
Huss, which decree the doctor boldly justi- 
fied, on the ground that Huss merited his 
fate by attempting to escape when he found 
he was to be burnt alive. 

From the examinations, also, of Dr. Ang- 
lade, professor of moral theology, and of 
Dr. McHale his predecessor, it appears that 
in the text-book of the course of divinity 
used in the college, it is distinctly laid down 
that there is, in the Church, a power of dis- 
pensing ivith oaths as well as with sins. 

In conformity with this doctrine, thus con- 
tained in their text-books and taught by 
their professors of theology, it was that 
Pope Clement VI. granted a special indul- 
gence to King John and Queen Joan of 
France, and to their heirs for ever, that their 
confessors might commute, for such other 



48 ROMANISM 

works of piety as they might deem expe- 
dient, such vows and oaths as they had taken 
or might take in all time to come, and which 
they might not profitably keep: denouncing 
the wrath of Almighty God, and of his 
blessed apostles Peter and Paul, against all 
who should presumptuously attempt to alter 
this grant. The perfect absurdity of such a 
grant as this may divert the mind from its 
presumptuous wickedness. But when Ave re- 
flect that this is only a practical exemplifica- 
tion of a doctrine belonging to their system, 
laid down in their standard books and 
taught in their halls of divinity, it assumes 
a more serious aspect, and ought to be looked 
upon with abhorrence, as highly detrimental 
to the civil and social interest of any com- 
munity. 

For what, now, I would ask, is the effect 
of this whole doctrine upon civil liberty and 
the rights of men? If the pope alone, or 
the pope and his councils together, have the 
power to annul contracts, to release men 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 49 

from their official promises and oaths, to loose 
the bonds which hold society together and 
ensure its harmonious operation, what security 
is there for the enjoyment of liberty or the 
possession of any right ? Suppose the pope, 
having the power, should think it for the 
benefit of the Church that the people of 
these United States should be freed from 
their obligation to obey the Constitution and 
laws of the country, and so ordain ; and sup- 
pose he should think it better not to execute 
treaties, or fulfill contracts into which the 
government has entered, and so order— who 
would feel secure, or that his liberties were 
safe? And would not all agree that such 
assumptions of power, in dispensing with 
moral obligations, were destructive of all 
security in the enjoyment of any civil privi- 
lege? I doubt not but that every loyal 
American citizen will thank God that the 
pope has no such power in our country. 
But if he had, may I not ask, after the fore- 
going statements, whether the accredited prin- 

5 



50 ROMANISM 

ciples of Romanism would not authorize him 
to exercise it ? 

4. But I proceed to remark, further, that 
Romanism destroys men's security in the 
enjoyment of civil liberty by its intolerant 
and persecuting character. It may again be 
proper to say that we do not speak of indi- 
viduals in the Roman Catholic Church, but 
we speak of their system, and of the work- 
ings of that system, as they have appeared in 
the past history of the Church and of the 
world. And here, again, w r e appeal to their 
own authorities in proof of what we have 
affirmed. 

As has been already remarked, Bellarmine 
is admitted by Roman Catholics to be an 
orthodox expositor of their doctrines. He 
delivered his lectures in the college at Rome, 
by the appointment of Pope Gregory XIII., 
only fourteen years after the close of the 
Council of Trent, and on this account may 
be supposed to be well informed on the sub- 
jects treated, and to speak the very language 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 51 

of his Church. And what says Bellarmine 
on the point now before us ? " Heretics/' he 
affirms, " are to be destroyed root and branch, 
if that can possibly be done : but if it appear 
that the Catholics are so few that they can- 
not, conveniently with their own safety, at- 
tempt such a thing, then it is best, in such a 
case, to be quiet, lest upon opposition made 
by the heretics the Catholics should be 
worsted." 

Again, he says, " It is not lawful for Chris- 
tians to tolerate an infidel or heretical man, 
if he endeavor to draw his subjects into his 
heresy or infidelity ; but it belongs to the 
pope, to whom the care of religion is com- 
mitted, to judge whether the king draws 
them into his heresy or not. It is therefore 
the business of the pope to judge whether 
the king should be deposed or not. If the 
Christians in former times did not depose 
Nero, Diocletian, and Julian the apostate 
. . . it was because they had not sufficient 
power. For that they had a right to do it 



52 HOMANISM 

is evident from the apostle Paul, in his First 
Epistle to the Corinthians, sixth chapter, 
where he orders the Christians to establish 
new judges of temporal affairs, that they 
might not be obliged to carry their causes 
before a judge who was a persecutor of Jesus 
Christ. As they might establish new judges, 
they might also choose new kings for the 
same reason, if they had the power." 

In accordance with this doctrine of Bellar- 
mine, the bishops and clergy, in the oath of 
allegiance to the pope which they are re- 
quired to take, swear, among other things, 
that they will " persecute and oppose all 
heretics, schismatics and rebels to their sov- 
ereign lord the pope or his successors." 
Hence, as a learned historian remarks, "All 
clergymen of the Church of Rome, not born 
within the verge of the ecclesiastical state, 
are subjects of a foreign power, and bound 
by the most sacred ties to lay violent hands 
on all who profess a religion different from 
their own." 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 53 

The same intolerant doctrine is taught by 
the Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., 
a. D. 1215. The council, after declaring 
that they " excommunicate and anathematize 
all heresy, condemning all heretics, by what 
names soever they are called," add the fol- 
lowing: " These, being condemned, must be 
left to the secular power to be punished." 
And, that there might be no flinching on the 
part of the secular powers, the same council 
provide that they are to be admonished and 
compelled to punish such offenders. To 
secure this, they must take the following 
oath, viz. : " That they will endeavor, bona 
fide and with all their might, to extermi- 
nate from every part of their dominions all 
heretical subjects universally that are marked 
out to them by the Church, so that from this 
time forward, when any one is promoted to 
any power, spiritual or temporal, he shall be 
obliged to conform to this. But if any tem- 
poral lord, being required and admonished 
by the Church, shall neglect to purge his 

5*- 



54 EOMANISM 

land from this heretical filthiness, he shall be 
tied up in the bond of excommunication by 
the metropolitan and his comprovincial bish- 
ops. And if he should neglect to make sat- 
isfaction within a year, it should be signified 
to the pope, that he might, from that time, 
pronounce the subjects absolved from alle- 
giance to him, and expose his territories to be 
seized on by Catholics, who, expelling the 
heretics, shall possess without contradiction." 

And, that Catholics might be encouraged 
in this work of persecution, it is added in the 
same chapter that " Catholics who, having 
taken the badge of the cross, shall set them- 
selves to extirpate heretics, shall enjoy the 
same indulgence, and be fortified with the 
same privilege, as is granted to those who go 
to the recovery of the Holy Land." 

As further proof of the persecuting cha- 
racter of popery, I would refer to the bull of 
Pope Innocent VIII. (the original of which 
is said to be in the library at Cambridge, 
England), which he issued for the extirpation 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 00 

of the Yaudois. This bull was given to 
Albert de Capitaneis, his legate and commis- 
sary general, for his expedition in the year 
1487. In this document, which was the 
most fatal and notable of all the bulls against 
the Waldenses, he authorized his legate to 
call upon and receive all the archbishops, and 
bishops, and other brethren, with the inquis- 
itor — "That they should take arms against 
said Waldenses and other heretics, and, with 
common counsels and means, crush and tread 
them as venomous serpents." He moreover 
entreated Charles, king of France, the noble- 
men of the kingdom, the confederates of Ger- 
many, and all the faithful, to " afford help to 
the said archbishops, bishops, etc., by suit- 
able aids and by their secular arms, and that 
they vehemently and vigorously set them- 
selves in opposition to these heretics, that so 
they may make them to perish, and entirely 
blot them out from the face of the earth." 
Such is a very brief outline of the substance 
of this famous bull. Its effects were of the 



56 EOMAKISM 

most desolating and horrible character, as it 
is stated that, in consequence of it, not less 
than eight hundred thousand of these "Wal- 
denses were destroyed. 

Of a like intolerant character is the bull 
of Pope Paul V., called " in cona Domini" 
dated April 4, 1613. To show what com- 
prehensiveness of detail is included in this 
remarkable document, I will quote part of 
the first section, which commences as follows, 
viz. : " We excommunicate and anathematize 
in the name of God Almighty, Father, Son 
and Holy Ghost, and by the authority of the 
blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our 
own, all Hussites, Wicklifites, Lutherans, 
Zwinglians, Calvinists, Huguenots, Anabap- 
tists, Trinitarians, and apostates from the 
Christian faith, and all other heretics, by 
whatsoever name they are called, and of what- 
soever sect they be." 

Every reader of history is familiar with 
the Edict of Nantes, which was drawn up at 
Nantes, A. d. 1598, by Henry IV. of France, 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 57 

in favor of the Protestants. In this edict, 
the liberty of worshiping God according to 
the dictates of their own consciences was 
granted to Protestants, and a full security 
j given for the enjoyment of their civil rights 
and privileges, without persecution or moles- 
tation from any quarter. Through the insid- 
ious arts of the priests and Jesuits, this edict 
was revoked by Louis XIV. in 1685, in con- 
sequence of which the Protestants were de- 
prived of the liberty of worshiping according 
to their own convictions. And what added 
to the grievance was, that the revocation was 
followed by an express order to all the Re- 
formed churches to embrace the Romish faith. 
The effect of this was, that those who could 
not leave the country were " assailed by every 
barbarous form of persecution." And what 
is worthy of notice in this connection is, that 
although there had existed long and violent 
quarrels between Louis and the pope, no 
sooner had the king revoked the Edict of 
Nantes than the pope wrote him a highly 



58 ROMANISM 

complimentary letter, in which he extols him 
for his " excellent piety," for having wholly 
abrogated all those constitutions that " were 
favorable to the heretics of his kingdom." 

The same spirit of persecution is further 
seen in the bull of Pope Urban VIIL, dated 
from the Vatican, May 25, 1643. This doc- 
ument was produced in the Court of the 
King's Bench on the trial of Connor, Lord 
Maguire, February 10, 1644. In this bull 
the pope recites the great zeal of the Irish in 
propagating the Christian faith, and endeav- 
oring by force of arms to deliver their nation 
from the oppressions of the heretics and to 
extirpate the workers of iniquity, and then 
grants them a full and plenary indulgence, 
and absolute remission of all their sins, so 
long as they should militate against said here- 
tics and other enemies of the Catholic faith. 

But we would fail of doing justice to our 
argument on this part of our subject if we 
did not refer to the Inquisition, as furnishing a 
striking illustration of the intolerant and per- 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 59 

secuting spirit of Romanism. This tribunal, 
dignified by the title of the " Holy Office/' 
and of which the pope is the supreme head 
and lawgiver, was instituted against the Albi- 
genses, by Pope Innocent III., in the early 
part of the thirteenth century, although he 
died before he succeeded in giving it perma- 
nent form. Its object was to search out her- 
etics, to try and condemn them as enemies to 
the Romish faith, and thus to complete what 
"the preaching of missionaries, anathemas, 
crusades and wars could not fully accom- 
plish." This tribunal soon "usurped a juris- 
diction over the persons, lives and fortunes 
of men independent of the civil authority, 
to which they left nothing but the drudgery 
of executing their iniquitous acts." And, 
although in its institution it was only pro- 
posed to punish the crime of heresy, the in- 
quisitors were vested with power to pursue 
and bring to confession all who were sus- 
pected; hence, assuming that those who were 
guilty of certain crimes against the civil law 



60 ROMANISM 

must be guilty of heresy, multitudes were 
thrown under suspicion, and arraigned and 
tortured for the purpose of bringing them to 
confession of their guilt. Its officers, called 
" familiars," were everywhere dispersed 
throughout the country. Whoever was sus- 
pected was addressed in the name of the Holy 
Inquisition, and, whether it w r ere father or 
mother, son or daughter, brother or sister, hus- 
band or wife, they must be given up, without 
a murmuring w r ord or any attempt to have 
them released. The proceedings respecting 
them were all of the most secret character, 
and the tortures they underwent were shock- 
ing to the sensibilities of the human heart. 

How opposite all this is to the enjoy- 
ment of civil liberty needs no argument to 
prove. The mere statement of the facts is 
sufficient to show that a system which author- 
izes such a tribunal — one so tyrannical and 
irresponsible — must be adverse to the liber- 
ties of any country. It conflicts with the 
liberty of conscience and the free exercise of 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 61 

our opinions and privileges, and places all at 
the sovereign disposal of the pope and his 
sworn emissaries. 

Before closing this discussion, we have some 
facts of a more recent date which we desire to 
present, for the purpose of showing that this 
doctrine of intolerance and persecution is still 
held by the Roman Catholic Church. As 
late as the year 1808, Pope Pius VII. ad- 
dressed a circular to all the cardinals in rela- 
tion to the alterations made by Napoleon Bo- 
naparte in the Gallican church. This circular 
contains the following passage in reference to 
these alterations, viz. : " It is proposed that 
all religious persuasions should be free, and 
their worship publicly exercised ; but toe have 
'rejected this article as contrary to the canons 
and councils of the Catholic religion, to the 
tranquillity of human life, and to the welfare 
of the state." It will be observed here that 
one of the grounds on which the pope rejected 
the proposed freedom of all religious denom- 
inations to enjoy their own modes of worship 



62 ROMANISM 

was, that it was " contrary to the canons and 
councils of the Catholic religion" — thus rec- 
ognizing the validity of the old enactments 
of the Church against heretics, and showing 
that on this subject she remains the same that 
she always was. The pope of 1808 cannot 
consent that all religious persons shall have 
liberty to worship God publicly and without 
molestation, according to their own views, 
because it is contrary to the canons and decrees 
of his Church! 

Still later, in the latter part of the year 
1823, the Eev. Dr. Doyle, Roman Catholic 
bishop of Kildare, Ireland, published " a 
vindication of the principles of the Irish 
Catholics," which was intended to conciliate 
opposition and to place popery in the most 
favorable light. In this publication he says, 
"Religious intolerance is a species of intol- 
erance distinct in itself ; it would appear to be 
one of the first consequences following from the 
idea of a divine revelation"* — the amount 

* As late as the early part of the year 1867, the Eo- 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 63 

of which statement appears to be this : that, 
while he admits the intolerance of the 
Church and the existence of a divine reve- 
lation, he assumes it as a necessary corollary, 
from the infallibility of the revelation, that 
the Roman Catholic Church, which is infal- 
lible, may enforce its reception, as interpreted 
by her, by temporal penalties or physical 
coercion. Such appears to be the logic by 
which the bishop attempts to prove the di- 
vine right of the Roman Catholic Church to 
burn heretics or to deprive them of the priv- 
ilege of worshiping God according to the dic- 
tates of their own consciences. And having 
laid down this proposition, he proceeds to 
ask, " What can influence the bulk of man- 
kind, ignorant and stupid as they are, but 

man Catholic paper of St. Louis, Mo., the organ of the 
archbishop of that city, uses the following ominous 
language, viz. : " The Church is, of necessity, intolerant. 
Heresy she endures when and where she must, but she 
hates it, and directs all her energies to its destruction. 
If Catholics ever gain an immense numerical majority, 
religious freedom in this country is at an end." 



64 ROMANISM 

authority ? What can preserve the Christian 
world from relapsing into the errors and im- 
pieties from which Christ has redeemed it 
but authority ? What preserves unity in any 
church or state in the universe but authority ? 
What fills, at the present day, these islands 
[England and Ireland] and Germany with 
the most frantic opinions, but the want of an 
authority sufficient to coerce them f So that, 
according to this liege subject and sworn offi- 
cer of the pope of Rome, it would be a most 
desirable consummation if they possessed 
sufficient authority and power to coerce the 
Protestants of Great Britain and Germany 
to give up their frantic opinions on the sub- 
ject of religion. And no doubt it would be 
equally gratifying .to this benevolent bishop 
to be enabled to exercise the same authority 
in regard to the Protestant citizens of the 
United States. 

But it may be interesting to come a little 
nearer to our own time, and to learn the 
opinions of Pope Gregory XVI., the imme- 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 65 

diate predecessor of the present incumbent 
of the papal chair. These we learn from his 
encyclical letter, bearing date September, 
1832. In that letter, while lamenting the 
disorders and infidelity of the times, he says : 
"From this polluted fountain of 6 indiffer- 
ence ' flows that absurd and erroneous doc- 
trine, or rather raving, in favor and defence 
of 'liberty of conscience/ for which most 
pestilential error the course is opened by that 
entire and wild liberty of opinion which is 
everywhere attempting the overthrow of reli- 
gious and civil institutions, and which the 
unblushing impudence of some has held forth 
as an advantage to religion ; hence that pest, 
of all others to be dreaded in a state, unbridled 
liberty of opinion, licentiousness of speech, 
and a lust for novelty which, according to 
the experience of all ages, portend the down- 
fall of the most powerful and flourishing 
empires. . . . Hither tends that worst and 
never sufficiently to be execrated and detested 
liberty of the press for the diffusion of all 
6 * 



66 ROMANISM 

manner of writings which some so loudly 
contend for and so actively promote." (Ap- 
pendix 3, etc.) 

The pope complains also of the dissemina- 
tion of unlicensed books, and, adopting the 
words of one of his predecessors — Clement 
XIII.— affirms that " no means must be here 
omitted, as the extremity of the case calls for 
all our exertions to exterminate the fatal pest 
which spreads through so many works ; nor 
can the materials of error be otherwise de- 
stroyed than by the flames, which consume the 
depraved elements of the evil." After read- 
ing this, need any one be surprised at the 
burning of the Bible by Roman Catholics, 
as has been clone even within these United 
States ? It was only carrying out in practice 
the doctrine of the pope's letter, and " con- 
suming the depraved elements of the evil" 
of which he complains, and which could not 
" other "wise be destroyed than by the flames " 

When the Mexican nation formed for 
themselves a new constitution, about the year 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 67 

1843, they inserted an article in which they 
profess and declare that they " will protect 
the Roman Apostolical Catholic religion to 
the exclusion of all others" Provision also is 
made in favor of soldiers and priests in an- 
other clause, in which it is said that "the 
military and ecclesiastical body shall remain 
subject to the same authorities under which 
they are placed by existing laws" These 
" existing laws," it is well known, exempted 
the persons mentioned from amenability to 
the civil authorities. Here, then, we have a 
specimen of papal liberty : no religion is tol- 
erated or protected in the enjoyment of its 
privileges but the Roman Catholic, and an 
express provision is made that her military 
and ecclesiastical bodies shall not be amenable 
to the same laws by which other citizens are 
bound. And let it not be overlooked here 
that this exemption of the clergy from the 
operation of the civil law^s of the country is 
precisely the same which was promulgated by 
the Third Council of Lateran in the twelfth 



68 ROMANISM 

century, and by the Fourth Council of Lat- 
eran and by Boniface VIII. in the thirteenth 
century, thus proving that the system of Ro- 
manism is the same in every age, and where 
opportunity is afforded it operates in the same 
intolerant form. 

In closing our proof on this point, I refer, 
without details, to the edict of the Inquisi- 
tion of Ancona against the Jews, issued by 
Fra Vicenzo Salena, the inquisitor-general of 
Ancona, appointed by the then reigning pon- 
tiff, Gregory XVI. By this edict the Jews 
were deprived of their most precious domes- 
tic, civil and religious privileges, and sub- 
jected to the severest penalties for its infrac- 
tion; and as this edict is dated June 24, 
1843, it cannot be excused or discredited as 
belonging to the dark ages. Surely, in view 
of these facts, the veriest skeptic must cease to 
doubt or to demand further proof that popery 
is the same now that it was in the time of 
Hildebrand, and that if " the penalties pre- 
scribed in the edicts of the Holy Inquisition" 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 69 

are not inflicted in other parts of the world 
than in Italy and South America, it is not 
for want of the will on the part of the pon- 
tiffs and their officials, but the want of 
power. 

We have thus discussed the question in 
reference to the opposition of Romanism to 
civil and political liberty. This we have 
done not by loose declamation or embel- 
lished rhetoric, but by the presentation of 
facts and arguments, the greater part of them 
drawn from their own books, from the de- 
crees of their councils, the bulls of their 
popes, and the acts of their official and author- 
ized agents. From these undoubted sources 
w r e have shown you that Romanism deprives 
the people of the free use of the Bible, the 
great text-book of civil liberty, and, by doing 
so, saps its very foundations. We have pre- 
sented to you the proof that it vests in the 
hands of the pope, or the pope and the gen- 
eral councils, a despotic and irresponsible 
power, altogether incompatible with the safe 



70 ROMANISM 

enjoyment of personal and public liberty. 
We have shown you that, by the teachings 
of Romanism, moral obligation is set aside, 
oaths and compacts disregarded, and human 
rights sacrificed for the benefit of the Church. 
We have, moreover, demonstrated that this 
system is intolerant and persecuting in its 
nature, and that now, as in former days, the 
opportunity and the power only are wanting 
to make the flames of the Inquisition the 
arbiters of men's opinions and the purifiers 
of their faith. 

What impressions these statements may 
make on men's minds we do not know. But 
the subject has been discussed from a deep 
conviction that it is one with which American 
Christians and citizens should be acquainted. 
At the present time it is especially import- 
ant to scan its nature and with watchful 
eye observe its progress. Special efforts are 
and have been making by the see of Rome 
and her adherents on the continent of Europe 
to propagate Romanism in these United 



THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 71 

States. Immense sums of money are ex- 
pended annually for this purpose. Multi- 
tudes of Eoman Catholic emigrants are en- 
couraged and aided to come over to this fair 
land and possess it. Jesuit priests, the faith- 
ful and well-trained officials of the pope, are 
constantly arriving. Bishoprics are being 
erected, and bishops, consecrated by pontif- 
ical hands, are placed in all our large cities 
to sustain the interests of Rome and to exert 
their influence in favor of principles which, 
if carried into practical effect, would subvert 
our liberties. 

This is no idle dream, as some would have 
it believed. It is a living, acting reality, 
which, if it has not done so already, must, 
before very long, force itself on the attention 
of all. We ask our fellow-Christians to look 
at it, to examine its workings, and to offer up 
prayers to God continually that the Protest- 
ant Church and country may be led to the 
adoption of such moral and religious means 
as may most effectually stem its progress. 



72 KOMANISM. 

We ask no inquisitorial power, no infuriate 
mob, to aid us in withstanding the march of 
popery. "The weapons of our warfare are 
not carnal" It is by moral force alone that 
we hope to prevail. It is by the word of 
God, by the power of the Holy Ghost, by 
the administrative energy of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, the only Head of the Church, that 
we look for the destruction of this despotic 
power, and the establishment and triumph of 
pure religion and civil liberty throughout 
the world. 



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